


Myriads

by Sacred



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, F/F, Fluff, Romance, postgame
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:34:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 5,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23421010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sacred/pseuds/Sacred
Summary: Aloy and Talanah's marriage prompts GAIA's systems to view the various possibilities of the multiverse.
Relationships: Aloy/Talanah Khane Padish
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	1. Two One-Winged Angels

**Author's Note:**

  * For [imagine0314](https://archiveofourown.org/users/imagine0314/gifts).



GAIA took in the world she had recreated, separating the deluge of information, and focusing her analytic processes towards a particular section of the planet. She thought of what Elizabet would say were she here now, taking in the happiness of a daughter she would never know. Of course GAIA was everywhere at once with her systems and subroutines but now she focused only on Aloy and Talanah’s joining as a couple.

There were no giant crowds, no entourage from Avad’s court, just a few trusted friends to witness the symbiosis of love, respect, and commitment that these two women exemplified. Aloy had never appeared happier to GAIA’s sensors as she broke from kissing her now wife. 

Aloy looked to the true friends all around, gathering her courage as she locked eyes with Talanah, speaking the words in a calm tone, even as tears shimmered into being. “I know I’ve said this so much, but I truly adore you Talanah. I hope to be your source of comfort when you’re hurt, your home when everything else is overwhelming, and to spend the rest of my life loving you, even when you steal my furs at night. I sought so long for so much. Answers, history, family, a place where I feel welcome. Well now I’m done seeking. I’ve found all those things and more in you, Talanah.” Talanah gave a happy sob at her words and Aloy beamed, the Sun Hawk taking a deep breath before squeezing her hand and speaking.

“I never thought I’d feel this happy again Aloy. After all the loss it’s so hard to see a better world, even with the sun shining brightly overhead. But meeting you, knowing you, and most importantly, loving, you, has opened my life to so much joy. I hope to show you as much love as I can. I want to give you a life filled with peaceful days and calm nights. We’ve both fought so much and for most of our lives we’ve been or felt alone, but I promise that you’ll never be alone again. Even when our time in this world ends, I’ll be with you, ready to see what the next has to offer. I love you Aloy, for being yourself. Not the Seeker, nor the Annointed, or even despite the Nora. Even when you snore worse than a Behemoth while we sleep.” Aloy laughed outright at that, letting her tears fall freely, before Talanah brought her in for a soft embrace, lips going to her right ear. “I promise to heal you, even when you’re not healing the world, as little or as much as I can, Aloy.”

Petra raised both her arms as the pair finished, giving a great cheer. “Aloy and Talanah have spoken their pieces, their words of promise and adoration. Now let’s celebrate!” She motioned with her left hand and Laulai nodded, beginning a great din of music. Gildun and Erend cheered, striking their full mugs together as they drank to the newly joined couple. Vanasha smiled happily, Teb cheering the loudest, while Sona raised an eyebrow at the unusual music of the din but soon enough was dragged into a dance by Petra.

GAIA soon left the celebrating party, Aloy and Talanah’s words repeating in her circuits, logging and flagging the data as vitally important. Another part of the AI hummed to life, bits of the engine from The Odyssey, the only pieces of the doomed craft found on the planet and brought to restore GAIA by Aloy, tapping into other streams of existence.

The multiverse was real, the AI had realized, thanks to the engine, and she was given a window into the various infinities. Aloy and Talanah’s words repeated, forming the impetus of the AI’s latest voyage through the window, wanting to see how her daughter and daughter-in-law and even herself would be reflected back in those million shards of reality.

These were but a few of what GAIA found within her enormity…


	2. Love at First Sight (Modern Day AU)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A surrogate Aloy goes to yoga class and does her best to stay cool and collected upon seeing her crush Talanah. Things escalate from there.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is a gift to imagine0314, whose Sobeck Women saga is a must-read for any Horizon Zero Dawn fan.

Aloy Sobeck blushed at her mother’s well-meaning advice. “Mother, please. Talanah likely has someone in her life, obviously as she’s pregnant. Not all of us are surrogates.”

Gaia Sobeck’s smile simply increased as she watched her blushing daughter. “You do not know that, dear. Please just try and ask her out. Your mom and I have a bet going.” That earned her an eyeroll.

“Really mother? Mom’s been a bad influence on you!” Gaia simply laughed as Aloy turned away, getting out of the car and going to the pregnancy yoga course, hoping her blush had faded by the time she passed through the door of the gym.

Of course then Talanah had looked at her as she made her way into class and Aloy’s mind started playing Kylie Minogue’s Love At First Sight. Cursing her brain, Aloy focused on smiling as normal and definitely not lovestruck, as possible. “Hey Talanah, how’ve you been?”

Talnah smiled and Kylie got even louder in her head, forcing Aloy to focus as intently as she could. “I’ve been well, sick of hearing people say I glow. I mean you’re further along and definitely glow, but for myself, I’m just ready to welcome this kid into the world.”

“I can understand that, though I’m a little hesitant about how the baby will view me in the future. Will I be a fun aunt? But really I’m just happy to help Avad and Ersa. They’ve been through so much and with this I can start to heal their world, at least just a little.” Talanah nodded at Aloy and moved closer, eyes asking permission and Aloy just rolling her eyes but nodding along. Beaming, Talanah mock-whispered as her three month pregnant belly bumped Aloy’s seventh month one.

“Let’s let the little ones talk a bit before class starts and maybe they’ll tell us how they’re feeling about everything too.” 

After class, Talanah took Aloy aside. “So I was wondering if you’d like to go out sometime.”

Aloy wanted to shout to the heavens, she wanted to ask Talanah if she was sure that was what she really wanted, to throw herself to the ground and kiss Talanah’s feet as this glowing, beautiful woman really wanted her in this condition, and really just write a poem or haiku about how amazing Talanah was with her long dark hair, deep brown eyes, and just the nicest person Aloy could recall meeting. Instead, she opened her mouth and said: “I thought you were married.”

“No, I’m not. Glad to see you want to move past friends in the two months we’ve taken this class together though. Decisiveness is attractive,” Talnah answered.

“Oh…you meant as friends…but I jumped the gun…but you just…oh ok a date. I can do dates, yeah!” 

Later on, when Aloy was telling this story to her teenage daughter, she embellished a suave and collected answer. Until Talanah told their daughter the real version a few moments later, earning herself a loving eyeroll.

Elizabet saw the goofy grin on her face and looked to her wife, who had a pleased smirk on her face which meant she had lost the bet about their daughter’s love-life. “Hey kiddo, finally asked Talanah out huh?”

“She asked me out, as friends, but I kind of overshared and it’s a date date. Besides, don’t you and mother have better things to do with your retirement then bet on me like a racehorse?” Aloy gave her mom a kiss on the cheek despite her mom shaking her head at the question, Gaia coming in from behind Aloy and sandwiching her between the two.

“Well I for one am very happy that you overshared, dear. You and Talanah will be very happy, I can tell.” 

“Wedding bells already in your head huh?” Aloy replied, causing her mother to laugh.

“Yours too, judging by the look on your face when I picked you up.”

“Alright, enough picking on the twenty two year old surrogate mother,” Aloy said. “I’m hungry, the baby’s hungry, I’m raiding the fridge.”

Both women let their daughter go and side-embraced, Elizabet nuzzling into Gaia’s neck, grateful to be shorter than her wife so she could do the action. “Just let me know when you want your reward.”

“Believe me darling, I will,” Gaia replied, adding a purr to her voice that caused goosebumps to spring to life down Elizabet’s spine, even after all these years.

One date became two, then more, until Aloy’s pregnancy got too advanced and finally the baby arrived, Talanah at her side and even though Aloy took as much strength as she could from her mothers, from Ersa, Avad, and her best friend Teb, it was Talanah’s calming presence that aided her the most as she fought through the pain and delivered a screaming baby boy into the world.

Months later, it was Aloy’s turn to be her girlfriend’s rock as the labor began and continued for 19 hours. In hour 7, Talanah, face red, eyes fierce, panted a bit before looking at Aloy. “Could you get me some water?” Aloy did so, having to leave the room after realizing that the pitcher was empty, returning shortly with some only to nearly spill it all right then and there at the sight of the ring in Talanah’s trembling hand. “I’m…hugh…not able to ask as eloquently as I wanted…huff…to but Aloy-“ Aloy placed the water down near the hospital bed and kissed Talanah. 

“Yes, yes, of course I’ll marry you!”

Their daughter and Avad and Ersa’s son were the flower throwers at the wedding two years later. 

Talanah and Aloy danced to Love at First Sight, Aloy grateful that for once the song she associated with a hopeless crush was now a symbol of everything she thought about her wife.


	3. They Are Giantesses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A lab accident changes Aloy and Talanah Sobeck's lives in big ways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The tone is all over the place in this chapter but I hope you enjoy it anyway.

Talanah Sobeck loved her wife. Six years into what Talanah’s mother considered the prime mistake of her life, namely eloping with the cute biology major she met at university, and Talanah knew that what she and Aloy had would endure. Of course there were times where Aloy’s stubbornness and focus on helping everyone but herself grated on Talanah’s desire to see her wife put herself first for once, she still was glad that Aloy was doing what she loved.

Then Talanah’s mother-in-law called and the attorney had cancelled all of her appointments, driving as fast as she could towards the lab Aloy worked at. The word accident kept ringing through Talanah’s mind and she saw her brother on the operating table, giving her a final thumbs up as they wheeled him away. She shook her head at the memory. Elizabet would have told her if Aloy was dead. The usual security around the lab was extra strong today, Talanah noticed but she was swiftly waved through.

Elizabet met her near the reception desk, giving her a strong hug before leading her towards the elevator, one that Aloy had told Talanah led to the more experimental projects the lab was geared for.

“She’s safe, lucid, and healthy.”

Talanah nodded at that. “But something’s happened to her.” 

“Yes. Remember the growth compound serum? Aloy got exposed to a part of the serum a week ago and the effects manifested while she was at work. “ As they were walking Talanah remembered a week ago, Aloy coming home later than usual but with that big, excited grin on her face. The rest of the evening had been spent in bed after a quick dinner and the morning was spent a little more languidly than usual as Aloy had held Talanah close and told her about her breakthrough.

The memory spurred Talanah’s steps as she followed Elizabet out of the elevator, not really paying much mind to the fact that they were far, far below the basement of the three story lab building. Stopping before a steel door, Elizabet turned towards Talanah. “There’s a chance that you were also exposed to the compound, so I’m afraid you will have to stay with her until we can figure out what’s happening.”

Talanah finds herself nodding, wondering if this was just a fever dream she was having, when Elizabet opened the door and Talanah saw her wife. 

So much of her wife, in fact, that Talanah realized that Aloy was now a literal giantess. Talanah gaped as Aloy spotted her, getting down on one knee, eyes watery. “I messed up honey and now you could be changed too. It’s all my fault.” Her voice was like sudden thunder, completely drowning out the beat of Talanah’s own heart and a deeper timbre but still recogniizably her wife. Aloy was dressed in what could only be described as a tarp, the kind they put on massive skyscrapers under construction. 

Talanah steeled herself as she tried to take in just how much more there was of her wife now. She doubted she came up to half of Aloy’s pinky toe. “Can you bring me up to your face?!” Aloy did so, Talnah getting a ride on her palm, and brought to eye level. “Can you hear me without raising my voice?” Aloy nodded and Talanah sighed in relief. “You’ve already changed my life Aloy, for the better. Being your wife, loving you, has been the best change I could ask for and if I become a giantess like you, that’s fine, because I would still be where I always want to: by your side. Even if I don’t change, I’ll be with you. So don’t go inward and blame yourself or beat yourself up. You’ve changed the world, just in a bigger way than you expected,” Talanah soothed, as best she could. Those who faced the dreaded hawk, as Talanah was known to be in court, would scarce believe that she could be soothing. Forthright, blunt, and unerring in her cause for justice, sure, but the woman standing tall in the palm of her enormous wife seemed a totally different person.

Aloy wanted to cry but held back her tears. “How do you always know just what to say?”

“Years of practice,” Talanah replied, when suddenly she hunched over as a wave of intense pain wracked her body. Aloy gently set her wife down and warned her to swiftly remove her wedding ring and then the redhead had a front row seat to gigantification as Talanah went from small bug size to half her height then taller and taller until she met Aloy’s eyes and grew just a few inches past them. “Ouch,” Talanah finally said, her voice as deepened as Aloy’s, surprised at the loss of the sudden pain. Sighing, she spotted the bits of ant-sized clothing in tatters below. “Those were my favorite work pants too.”

“We’ll create suitable replacements,” a new voice called out over a loudspeaker. “For now though, we’ll give you two some privacy. But let me be the first to welcome you to the Greater Authority Involving Anomalies organization or GAIA for short. My name is Sylens. Questions can come later.”

“Thanks mysterious voice,” Talanah said after several quiet moments. Now her life was something out of a comic book, but Talanah had Aloy and together they’d face this new change.

But first she broke in her giantess lips by kissing her wife, Aloy responding with her usual passion. “If I had known how good this feels, I would have turned us into giants sooner,” Aloy joked after the kiss.

“If only mom could see us now,” Talanah remarked.

“I’d sit on her kitchen,” Aloy promised, “See how durable her new marble countertops really are.” Aloy hadn’t quite forgiven her mother-in-law for last Christmas dinner or all the snide remarks about her just using Talanah for her money despite the fact that she made more than her wife. The fact that the woman refused to consider Aloy as no more than a passing fling Talanah would get over despite their longstanding marriage made the redhead realize just why giants had such a temper in the fairy tales.

But dreams of crushing her mother-in-law’s possessions with her wife could wait. Now all she wanted to do was help steady her wife as they stood in place in this new phase of their lives. Well, Aloy thought as she took in her wife’s Godzilla-sized hips, that and enjoy the view. Maybe she’d lose her own tarp and compare.

She looked up into her wife’s eyes then and was met with a pleased smirk. “Glad to know I’ve still got it despite being bigger than King Kong.”

“He’d come up to our ankles, we’re actually closer to the largest Godzilla in fiction, but yes honey, you’ve definitely still got it.” Aloy had made up her mind. She divested her tarp and did a little spin. “What about me?” Talanah put on a pensive expression, earning herself a light punch to the shoulder.

“Hello there, beautiful!”

“Nice save,” Aloy commented, the moment making Elizabet Sobeck monitoring next to Sylens roll her eyes.

She had two goofy giantesses as her familiy now.


	4. Witch Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aloy, the infamous witch, decides that she wants companionship as she approaches her 400th year of life.

Finding love as a knight, dragon, princess, or any other myriad of magical and mundane beings was easy, as far as Aloy was concerned. True love’s kiss was a start but getting to know one another was the true path to happiness for all those other kinds of existences. But not for Aloy.

Aloy was a witch, proud of her status, loved the isolation, the transforming of fates and lives, the power of magic. She had even cried when the first wart appeared, happy tears that made her thrush familiar Teb beat his wings in solidarity with his mistress. She practiced her hunch, making sure her red hair didn’t overpower the grey and silver coming in as she neared her fourth century of life, and even turned herself into a pig and back just to keep in practice as the questers stopped coming so frequently to her cottage in the dark glen. She needed to work more on adding just a bit more fat to the pig spell, not wanting her victims to have an easy time of running away to find help or, netherworld forbid, a good witch to reverse all her effort.

But it was around this time of feeling truly confident and secure in her life’s work that the emptiness began to settle. The feeling would abate for a time then come roaring back to life as she turned yet another happy couple into sows or bugs and left them to their love transformed. Especially when the transformed lovers nuzzled or touched anteenae. That Avad and Ersa a few curses ago had been especially galling, as the sow Ersa was bigger than her transformed lover and yet he had tried to shield her anyway, until both banded together, oinking up a storm and not letting Aloy get a good night’s rest for a week.

She turned them back to normal but with a few alterations, namely an urge to squeal when they looked at each other, corkscrew tails, and lack of any human table manners. As they departed her life, squealing empty threats of vengance from Ersa and low oinks of forgiveness from Avad, Aloy decided that maybe she was wrong about being ok with being alone for the rest of her life.

So she turned to her faithful black cauldron, put in a few of Teb’s tail feathers, and let the scrying begin. Varl the Enchanter seemed alright but he was too neutral good for her liking, so she swept left with the broomstick, bringing up Vanasha the Vain. She was cute, but her stats indicated a habit of secret-keeping that were a bit too fastidious for Aloy’s liking. Another sweep of the broom brought her Petra, a dwarven witch with a personality that overwhelmed her cauldron. Too much energy, Aloy thought, swiping left again before dismissing the spell. Teb gave a squawk but Aloy simply glared him into silence, heading for bed.

If she had paid attention she would have noticed the cauldron spring back to life and showing an image of a certain witch, not the most infamous, but one the familiar saw similar attributes in his mistress. A perfect match given what the bird knew of his mistresses’ tastes in life.

“That does it!” Aloy finally said after permanently turning the census taker for the kingdom into a statue, “Teb, keep the wards strong while I’m gone. When I come back you’ll have a co-master or mistress and I won’t be alone anymore.” He keened an affirmative and Aloy gave him the evil eye for good measure, satisfied when he didn’t budge or rustle one feather out of place.

Thus the quest for a lifemate began as Aloy, famed Seeker Witch, sought more than just power, the purveyance of misery, or the perfect potatoes to mash into her breakfast. The wider world was treacherous, Aloy rediscovered, with all these sickeningly sweet rustic townsfolk and their similar cousins the cityfolk. A lot wished her well and she didn’t come upon a single ruffian or bandit even three fortnights travel from her home. Instead she got people offering her their cloaks or free food.

She cursed the cloaks to give their owners nightmares and the food to cause whoever ate it to have the breath of an ogre for the rest of their life. The shrieks that reached her ears in her wake were the first bit of joyous sounds she heard until she reached a sallow-eyed populace in a busy but not bustling hub called Meridian. All looked miserable and Aloy could tell that this was the work of quite the mage. A few of her personal wards even fizzled out and her hunchback ached a little as she plunged towards the source of this power.

The Hunter’s Lodge seemed as typical a tavern as any. Rooms upstairs for rent, drinks and food aplenty, but there wasn’t that welcoming air Aloy had found in the towns and villages. There was something hopeless, moreso than anywhere else in this city. Not the sudden hopelessness of a quick death but the slow agony of an unyielding suffering. It was just what she intended for the victims of her transfigurations.

The author of all this misery and spellcraft was clear to the old witch, finding her contemporary to be quite ugly, an ugliness that took her breath away. Mostly silver hair, streaks of black popping up here and there, a noticeable wart where a dimple would be, fuzzy unibrow, a nice-sized hunchback. Aloy licked her chapped lips before shaking her head. She was trained by Circe herself for evil’s sake! She was not going to fall for the clear stunning looks of this witch, no matter how the light gleamed off her crooked yellow teeth or the way her honey eyes, one nearly full of pale cataract, lit up as she matched her gaze.

“I can sense by your wards and general appearance that you are no ordinary witch,” the witch said, her voice like rotten honey, a slighly raspiness to her observation.

“A keen eye, you have,” Aloy replied, her own voice a tad deeper, rougher, like the discordant clanging of rubbish bins startling a peaceful slumber. Her amber-green pupils, rheumy with the centuries and quite bloodshot, again took in her fellow witch.

“Thank you. I am Talanah, also known as The Doom of Meridian or The Golden-Eyed Ruin to some civilizations a few centuries ago. What brings you to my uncomfortable den of suffering?”  
“My name is Aloy, known as The Overrider Of Fates or The Dawn’s End in some circles. I’m too old to beat around the bush, so I’ll lay it plain for all to see. I want a lifemate and I won’t return home until I’ve found said mate. You are wonderfully hideous and I can see, even now, a truly terrible fate ahead should you agree to be with me.” Aloy hadn’t blushed in two hundred and twenty seven years but something about this witch called to her, deep in her cursed soul, and that led a rosy taint to stain her chubby cheeks.

Talanah also felt something for the revolting witch before her, deep down, past the layers of grime and filth she’d steeped her vile soul in. A rare thing for a witch, this sense of utter completeness in the gaze of another being. Her teacher, the goddess Hecate, had told her of such a phenomenon happening in their kind but twice in the eons this world had spun. So, as always with beings of incredible magical power and for those without, Talanah had a choice.

“Well Aloy, I’ll be your lifemate.” 

Aloy beamed and took her now mate’s hand, their magical auras merging, curses with transformation, their combined power echoing throughout the entire city.

They left Meridian, traveling back towards Aloy’s solitary hut, stopping only to turn a good witch in her hundreth year of life into a toad, but slowly, the witch keeping most of her human mind but left with the insticts of a toad subtly growing more and more in her grey matter. Aloy took in the good witch’s shame at allowing the animal part of her to take over as she ate flies, then her utter embarrassment as she started to do it of her own accord. The shrieks of her soul sent pleased shivers down Aloy’s spine, the sensation causing the witch to kiss her mate deeply.

“Mmmmm…I hated that,” Talanah purred.

They were at Aloy’s doorstep now, Teb cawing from inside. Aloy decided to do things the so-called normal way and soon had her mate in her arms, the transformation witch struggling to carry her past the threshold but she just managed it, promptly dropping Talanah harshly to the ground. “Welcome home Talanah.”

Their happy cackles rang long into the night, causing every cat to yowl in the nearest village ten miles away.

They lived seven more centuries, changing and cursing any and all who crossed their path, until an alliance of good witches crushed the both of them under the combined weight of five houses.

The mated pair couldn’t have asked for a better send off as witches, their middle fingers raised high together as their end came.


	5. Gooey In The Good Sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Talanah observes Aloy as she paints.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a line from imagine0314's A New Dawn as well as a half-remembered character from a box office bomb I saw at the dollar theater almost 19 years ago.

Talanah had once asked her girlfriend what the first defining physical trait of hers called out to the artist. “Your eyes,” Aloy had answered after two seconds and no hesitation. She had looked up from her latest canvas then, approaching Talanah, eyes locked with hers. “Honey-gold ringed with brown. They make me feel sweet, cared for, and gooey in a good sense.”

“Gooey in a good sense,” Talanah repeated.

“Passing over the other two descriptors I see,” Aloy said, but cupped either side of Talanah’s face. “Enveloped in a viscous liquid, a barrier made up of love and determination. A snug blanket keeping out the monsters. So yeah…gooey.” Two kisses, one on either side of Aloy’s cheeks, then a final one on her lips followed. Aloy had hummed in satisfaction, then broke apart. “What about me? What physical aspect called out to you?”

Talanah took a second shorter in answering. “Your cheeks.” Aloy’s face turned a tad scarlet then as her hands went to her rear but Talanah cut off the action with a laugh. “No, no, not those cheeks, your face.” Talanah moved closer, her turn to cup Aloy’s face. “A white expanse, dotted with red stars. Constellations to guide me home, horizons to keep me wondering, and a tapestry to lose myself in.” She had felt Aloy’s face warm in her hands, then Aloy had taken her by the wrists, gently lowered her arms, and kissed her silly.

Talanah thought steamier events would follow but instead she had been motioned to sit on the bed. The dark haired young adult was then privy to watching Aloy from a subject’s perspective as she painted for the first time.

She was entranced.

Talanah kept that enchantment up to this very moment, fifteen years later.

She was the subject again and Aloy’s freckles danced along the horizon of her cheeks as she worked. Those emerald amber eyes would occasionally dart out from behind the frame, and just for a second Talanah can see her wife’s tongue as she licks her slightly dry lips. Then there’s the steadiness of her hands, making deft movements and broad strokes along a single line of motion. 

She still had to remind herself to catch her breath even now.

The first time she had sat for Aloy it had taken just over an hour.

Now Aloy was done in less than twenty.

“Can I see it?”

Aloy nodded and Talanah walked around to see the finished piece. 

It was her wearing some kind of strange armor, her midriff was exposed, a bandolier consisting of an odd kind of metal trailed from her right shoulder past her hip. She had a proud grin on her face, bow on her back. A kind of robotic horse was beside her and she was staring at her apparent quarry. Said quarry had Aloy’s general facial features, namely her freckled cheeks, eyes, and that content, lovestruck smile on her face when they lazed around in bed. But all of this familiarity was encased in a cartoon anthropomorphic heart.

But somehow Aloy had managed to make both the fierce huntress Talanah of the portrait and the heart creature with her face mesh perfectly together, like they belonged under the same sky.

“Looking at this makes me feel…” Talanah trailed off, waiting until Aloy began to pout to continue, “gooey in a good sense.”

Aloy beamed, her face a near perfect match for the expression on the heart’s face in the painting as she looked at her huntress. “This is my second favorite representation of you.”

Talanah sighed then, earning a full pout from her wife. “Even after all these years? I’m not sure how I should take it that I’m the main character in a movie that almost destroyed a company.”

“Aki Ross is my fictional crush and her body with your face, and especially your eyes, is my best work.” Talanah cocked an eyebrow at that and Aloy turned sheepish. She reached a hand out, said hand coated in bits of paint, and placed it on Talanah’s pregnant belly. “Well my best work until she’s born.”

“Thanks for giving me my abs back,” Talanah finally said, placing her hand over Aloy’s, turning her attention back to the painting.

“Of course, they’re my second favorite feature, though your belly’s edging past them just a bit.”

Talanah lovingly rolled her eyes and focused on the gooey feeling the painting brought her as she squeezed Aloy’s hand just a little tighter.


End file.
